However, I merely throw out these conjectures without by any means contending that more plausible ones might not be suggested. But whatever supposition we adopt, or whether we adopt any, the objections to the commonly received accounts will remain in their full force, and imperiously demand the attention of the candid sceptic.

I call upon those, therefore, who profess themselves advocates of free inquiry—who disdain to be carried along with the stream of popular opinion, and who will listen to no testimony that runs counter to experience,—to follow up their own principles fairly and consistently. Let the same mode of argument be adopted in all cases alike; and then it can no longer be attributed to hostile prejudice, but to enlarged and philosophical views. If they have already rejected some histories, on the ground of their being strange and marvellous,—of their relating facts, unprecedented, and at variance with the established course of nature,—let them not give credit to another history which lies open to the very same objections,—the extraordinary and romantic tale we have been just considering. If they have discredited the testimony of witnesses, who are said at least to have been disinterested, and to have braved persecutions and death in support of their assertions,—can these philosophers consistently listen to and believe the testimony of those who avowedly get money by the tales they publish, and who do not even pretend that they incur any serious risk in case of being detected in a falsehood? If, in other cases, they have refused to listen to an account which has passed through many intermediate hands before it reaches them, and which is defended by those who have an interest in maintaining it; let them consider through how many, and what very suspicious hands, this story has arrived to them, without the possibility, as I have shown, of tracing it back to any decidedly authentic source, after all;—to any better authority, according to their own showing, than that of an unnamed and unknown foreign correspondent;—and likewise how strong an interest, in every way, those who have hitherto imposed on them, have in keeping up the imposture. Let them, in short, show themselves as ready to detect the cheats, and despise the fables of politicians as of priests.

But if they are still wedded to the popular belief in this point, let them be consistent enough to admit the same evidence in other cases which they yield to in this. If, after all that has been said, they cannot bring themselves to doubt of the existence of Napoleon Buonaparte, they must at least acknowledge that they do not apply to that question the same plan of reasoning which they have made use of in others; and they are consequently bound in reason and in honesty to renounce it altogether.

FOOTNOTES:

POSTSCRIPT TO THE THIRD EDITION.

It may seem arrogant for an obscure and nameless individual to claim the glory of having put to death the most formidable of all recorded heroes. But a shadowy champion may be overthrown by a shadowy antagonist. Many a terrific spectre has been laid by the beams of a halfpenny candle. And if I have succeeded in making out, in the foregoing pages, a probable case of suspicion, it must, I think, be admitted, that there is some ground for my present boast, of having killed Napoleon Buonaparte.

Let but the circumstances of the case be considered. This mighty Emperor, who had been so long the bugbear of the civilized world, after having obtained successes and undergone reverses, such as never befel any (other at least) real potentate, was at length sentenced to confinement in the remote island of St. Helena: a measure which many persons wondered at, and many objected to, on various grounds; not unreasonably, supposing the illustrious exile to be a real person; but on the supposition of his being only a man of straw, the situation was exceedingly favourable for keeping him out of the way of impertinent curiosity, when not wanted, and for making him the foundation of any new plots that there might be occasion to conjure up.

About this juncture it was that the public attention was first invited, by these pages, to the question as to the real existence of Napoleon Buonaparte. They excited, it may be fairly supposed, along with much surprise and much censure, some degree of doubt, and probably of consequent inquiry. No fresh evidence, as far as I can learn, of the truth of the disputed points, was brought forward to dispel these doubts. We heard, however, of the most jealous precautions being used to prevent any intercourse between the formidable prisoner, and any stranger who, from motives of curiosity, might wish to visit him. The "man in the iron mask" could hardly have been more rigorously secluded: and we also heard various contradictory reports of conversations between him and the few who were allowed access to him; the falsehood and inconsistency of most of these reports being proved in contemporary publications.

At length, just about the time when the public scepticism respecting this extraordinary personage might be supposed to have risen to an alarming height, it was announced to us that he was dead! A stop was thus put, most opportunely, to all troublesome inquiries. I do not undertake to deny that such a person did live and die. That he was, and that he did, everything that is reported, we cannot believe, unless we consent to admit contradictory statements; but many of the events reported, however marvellous, are certainly not, when taken separately, physically impossible. But I would only entreat the candid reader to reflect what might naturally be expected, on the supposition of the surmises contained in the present work being well founded. Supposing the whole of the tale I have been considering to have been a fabrication, what would be the natural result of such attempt to excite inquiry into its truth? Evidently the shortest and most effectual mode of avoiding detection, would be to kill the phantom, and so get rid of him at once. A ready and decisive answer would thus be provided to any one in whom the foregoing arguments might have excited suspicions: "Sir, there can be no doubt that such a person existed, and performed what is related of him; and if you will just take a voyage to St. Helena, you may see with your own eyes,—not him, indeed, for he is no longer living,—but his tomb: and what evidence would you have that is more decisive?"

So much for his Death: as for his Life,—it is just published by an eminent writer: besides which, the shops will supply us with abundance of busts and prints of this great man; all striking likenesses—of one another. The most incredulous must be satisfied with this! "Stat magni NOMINIS umbra!"

KONX OMPAX.

POSTSCRIPT TO THE SEVENTH EDITION.

Since the publication of the Sixth Edition of this work, the French nation, and the world at large, have obtained an additional evidence, to which I hope they will attach as much weight as it deserves, of the reality of the wonderful history I have been treating of. The Great Nation, among the many indications lately given of an heroic zeal like what Homer attributes to his Argive warriors, τίσασθαι ἙΛΈΝΗΣ ὁρμήματά τε στοναχάς τε, have formed and executed the design of bringing home for honourable interment the remains of their illustrious Chief.

How many persons have actually inspected these relics, I have not ascertained; but that a real coffin, containing real bones, was brought from St. Helena to France, I see no reason to disbelieve.

Whether future visitors to St. Helena will be shown merely the identical place in which Buonaparte was (said to have been) interred, or whether another set of real bones will be exhibited in that island, we have yet to learn.

This latter supposition is not very improbable. It was something of a credit to the island, an attraction to strangers, and a source of profit to some of the inhabitants, to possess so remarkable a relic; and this glory and advantage they must naturally wish to retain. If so, there seems no reason why they should not have a Buonaparte of their own; for there is, I believe, no doubt that there are, or were, several Museums in England, which, among other curiosities, boasted, each, of a genuine skull of Oliver Cromwell.

Perhaps, therefore, we shall hear of several well authenticated skulls of Buonaparte also, in the collections of different virtuosos, all of whom (especially those in whose own crania the "organ of wonder" is the most largely developed) will doubtless derive equal satisfaction from the relics they respectively possess.

POSTSCRIPT TO THE NINTH EDITION.

The Public has been of late much interested and not a little bewildered, by the accounts of many strange events, said to have recently taken place in France and other parts of the Continent. Are these accounts of such a character as to allay, or to strengthen and increase, such doubts as have been suggested in the foregoing pages?

We are told that there is now a Napoleon Buonaparte at the head of the government of France. It is not, indeed, asserted that he is the very original Napoleon Buonaparte himself. The death of that personage, and the transportation of his genuine bones to France, had been too widely proclaimed to allow of his reappearance in his own proper person. But "uno avulso, non deficit alter." Like the Thibetian worshippers of the Dalai Lama, (who never dies; only his soul transmigrates into a fresh body), the French are so resolved, we are told, to be under a Buonaparte—whether that be (see note to p. 56) a man or "a system"—that they have found, it seems, a kind of new incarnation of this their Grand Lama, in a person said to be the nephew of the original one.

And when, on hearing that this personage now fills the high office of President of the French Republic, we inquire (very naturally) how he came there, we are informed that, several years ago, he invaded France in an English vessel, (the English—as was observed in p. 52—having always been suspected of keeping Buonaparte ready, like the winds in a Lapland witch's bag, to be let out on occasion,) at the head of a force, not, of six hundred men, like his supposed uncle in his expedition from Elba, but of fifty-five,(!) with which he landed at Boulogne, proclaimed himself emperor, and was joined by no less than one man! He was accordingly, we are told, arrested, brought to trial, and sentenced to imprisonment; but having, some years after, escaped from prison, and taken refuge in England, (England again!) he thence returned to France: AND SO the French nation placed him at the head of the government!

All this will doubtless be received as a very probable tale by those who have given full credit to all the stories I have alluded to in the foregoing pages.

POSTSCRIPT TO THE ELEVENTH EDITION.

When any dramatic piece takes—as the phrase is—with the Public, it will usually be represented again and again with still-continued applause; and sometimes imitations of it will be produced; so that the same drama in substance will, with occasional slight variations in the plot, and changes of names, long keep possession of the stage.

Something like this has taken place with respect to that curious tragi-comedy—the scene of it laid in France—which has engaged the attention of the British public for about sixty years; during which it has been "exhibited to crowded houses"—viz., coffee-houses, reading-rooms, &c., with unabated interest.

The outline of this drama, or series of dramas, may be thus sketched:

And from this point we start afresh, and begin the same business over again, with sundry fresh interludes.

All this is highly amusing to the English Public to hear and read of; but I doubt whether our countrymen would like to be actual performers in such a drama.

Whether the French really are so, or whether they are mystifying us in the accounts they send over, I will not presume to decide. But if the former supposition be the true one,—if they have been so long really acting over and over again in their own persons such a drama, it must be allowed that they deserve to be characterized as they have been in the description given of certain European nations: "An Englishman," it has been said, "is never happy but when he is miserable; a Scotchman is never at home but when he is abroad; an Irishman is never at peace but when he is fighting; a Spaniard is never at liberty but when he is enslaved; and a Frenchman is never settled but when he is engaged in a revolution."

POSTSCRIPT TO THE TWELFTH EDITION.

"Time" says the proverb, "rings Truth to light." But the process is gradual and slow. The debt is paid, as it were, by instalments. It is only bit by bit, and at considerable intervals, that Truth comes forth as the morning twilight to dispel the mists of fiction.

It is above forty years that men have been debating the question:—Who were the parties that burned the city of Moscow?—without ever thinking of the preliminary question, whether it ever was burnt at all. And now at length we learn that it never was.

The following extract from a New Orleans paper contains the information obtained by an American traveller—one of that great nation whose accuracy as to facts is so well known—who visited the spot.

Any wary sceptic, indeed, might have found much ground for doubt in the very accounts themselves that were given of the conflagration. For, the Russians have always denied that they burned it; and the French equally disclaimed the act. Each of the two parties between whom the accusation lay, strenuously denied it. And it must be acknowledged that each had very strong presumptions of innocence to urge. It was certainly most unlikely that the Russians should themselves destroy their ancient and venerable capital; and that, too, when they were boasting of having just gained a great victory at Borodino over an army which, therefore, they might hope to defeat again, and to drive out of their city. And it was no less unlikely that the French should burn down a city of which they had possession, and which afforded shelter and refreshment to their troops. This would have been one of the most improbable circumstances of that most improbable (supposed) campaign. To add to the marvel, we are told that the French army nevertheless waited for five weeks, without any object, amid the ashes of this destroyed city, just at the approach, of winter, and as if on purpose to be overtaken and destroyed by snows and frost!

However, all the difficulties of the question whether any of these things took place at all, were by most persons overlooked, because the question itself never occurred to them, in their eagerness to decide who it was that burned the city. And at length it comes out that the answer is, Nobody!

THE END.

POSTSCRIPT.

With respect to the foregoing arguments, it has been asserted (though without even any attempt at proof) that they go to prove that the Bible-narratives contain nothing more miraculous than the received accounts of Napoleon Buonapartè. And this is indeed true, if we use the word "miraculous" in the very unusual sense in which Hume (as is pointed out in the foregoing pages) has employed it; to signify simply "improbable;" an abuse of language on which his argument mainly depends.

It is indeed shown, that there are at least as many and as great improbabilities in the history of Buonapartè as in any of the Scripture-narratives; and that as plausible objections,—if not more so,—may be brought against the one history as the other.

But taking words in their ordinary, established sense, the assertion is manifestly the opposite of the truth. For, any one who does,—in spite of all the improbabilities,—believe the truth of both histories, is, evidently, a believer in miracles; since he believes two narratives, one of which is not miraculous, while the other is. The history of Buonapartè contains—though much that is very improbable—nothing that is to be called, according to the established use of language, miraculous. And the Scriptures contain, as an essential part of their narrative, Miracles, properly so called.

To talk of believing the Bible, all except the Miracles, would be like professing to believe the accounts of Buonapartè, except only his commanding armies, and having been at Elba and at Saint Helena.

One cannot doubt that in the course of the forty years that this little Work has been before the Public, some real, valid refutation of the argument would have been adduced, if any such could have been devised.

1860.